Joel Edgerton To Play Tom Buchanan In Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

The last month has been full of starts and stops for Aussie actor Joel Edgerton. First it was reported that he was a frontrunner for the lead in The Bourne Legacy - nope, Jeremy Renner ended up taking that job. No worries though, there always Snow White And The Huntsman. Oh...Chris Hemsworth got that gig? Fortunately Edgerton's bad luck streak was ended when Kathryn Bigelow cast him in the lead for her incredibly topical Kill Bin Laden and he's landed a coveted role in a major literary adaptation.

Deadline reports that Joel Edgerton is set to play Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann's take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Initially offered to Ben Affleck, Tom is the husband of Daisy Buchanan, played by Carey Mulligan, and is characterized as a white supremacist Long Island millionaire who cheats on his wife with Myrtle Wilson, played by Isla Fisher. The rest of the cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker. Confirming the casting, Luhrmann took the photo above of Edgerton as Buchanan and had this to say about the casting choice:

"In casting Tom one had to find an actor who could credibly be (as Fitzgerald describes him) 'one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven,' had five-star acting chops and in the big dramatic showdown scenes between Gatsby and Tom, hold the screen against Leonardo DiCaprio, in the appropriate age group. Any wonder, it has been a long and thorough journey. The simple truth is that Joel came into our rehearsal space in New York and fulfilled all of the above criteria, and then some."

While not as well known in the states as he should be, Edgerton has a pretty solid back-half of 2011 set up, as he is starring across from Tom Hardy in Warrior come September 9th and in The Thing prequel on October 14th. As for whether or not Edgerton has the chops to play a character like Buchanan, do yourself a favor and go out and rent Animal Kingdom and The Square. Should help in providing the answer.

Check out the photo of Edgerton as Buchanan below or full size over on Deadline.